'Did you sleep through the last sexual harassment seminar? Comments made in the presence of a female officer can also constitute harassment.'

Weirdly it sort of hurt my feelings that Travers seemed angrier with me now than before I'd saved his ass in the mountains, and then I wondered if he hadn't liked being saved by a woman and a bunch of preternaturals? If that was it, it pissed me off even more.

Hatfield stood up for me. 'If one of her vampires hadn't sucked out that rotting disease, you'd be dying like the sheriff.'

'I didn't ask for the help,' he said.

'Ungrateful bastard,' I said.

He turned those angry eyes to me. 'You want a piece of me, Blake?'

'If you mean sexually, no thanks.'

He flushed, his face coloring.

'If you mean a fight, I'll wait until you're healed. It wouldn't be fair while you're wounded.'

His face darkened even more, and he started walking toward me, which meant toward Edward, too, since we were beside each other.

'Don't finish walking over here, Travers,' Edward said, 'because I don't care if you're wounded.'

'You think you can take me?'

'I know I can,' and he smiled as he said it, which was the guy equivalent of saying he didn't want the fight at the same time he was encouraging it.

Travers kept coming. Captain Jonas intercepted him. He looked small beside the other man, but there was nothing small about his attitude. 'Go home, Travers. I'll be recommending you get some counseling, because you're obviously traumatized by recent events.'

'I'm not hurt that bad; I can help find this bastard.'

'I didn't say you were hurt, I said you were traumatized. Now go home while I can still give you the benefit of the doubt. If you touch either Forrester or Blake, I will suspend you without pay, now go home right now!'

He turned to go but had to throw a comment over his shoulder. 'I don't owe your vampire anything, Blake.'

'Truth didn't save you so you'd owe him something. He saved you because it was the right thing to do and he respects fellow warriors.'

'He is not a fellow warrior. He's just a damn bloodsucker!'

'Would you rather be rotting away in the hospital like Sheriff Callahan?' I didn't yell it, but my voice was getting louder.

'Why didn't your vampire save him?'

'Because the disease has spread through his body, and there's no one place to suck the poison out.' I felt the bite of tears behind my eyes. I would not cry in front of this bastard. 'It's too late to save Micah's dad, but we were able to save you, you fucking ungrateful, misogynistic, prejudiced, racist, undeserving bastard.'

Travers's face sort of froze, and then it was like he looked lost that was the only word I had for it. That one expression was enough; something about the fight in the mountains, being wounded, being saved by Truth, had affected him deeply, and not in a good way. He just turned without another word and walked out.

'What the hell was that about?' Jonas asked, to no one in particular.

Since the question hadn't been directed at anyone in particular, no one answered it. In fact, the silence was a little thick.

It was Deputy Al from the back of the room. 'Sorry I'm late, but damn, Anita, you cuss real pretty.'

It made people laugh, at least a little. I smiled as Al walked farther into the room. He smiled at me, and the look on his face let me know he'd heard enough of what had just happened to want to make it better. Travers might be an ungrateful bastard, but for every one of those there was an Al, and a Hatfield, and a Jonas. I had more friends than enemies in most cities. It was just that I didn't understand why some people kept resenting me; I just didn't get it, and I never would. I wasn't much for hating people for things they couldn't change, like the way they looked, or psychic gifts, or whatever. I was grumpy and killed people almost everywhere I went, but I didn't hate them. That probably wasn't much of a comfort to the people I executed, but hey, sometimes you take what you can get.

CHAPTER 58

Once upon a time, hunting vampires was all about daylight. You hoarded the hours while the vamps couldn't be up and hunting you back so you could find them in their daytime lair and put a stake through their hearts, or decapitate them while they were dead to the world and couldn't fight back, but we had two vampires in custody that might be able to answer all our questions. They probably knew his daytime retreat, but while the sun was up they couldn't talk to us. Yes, there was that pesky lawyer thing, but now that the warrant was mine I could use all the power it granted me. That power included being able to force the lawyer to let me question them with him present, if I believed more lives would be lost without their information. We'd lost five people last night, and only two of them had a job that put them in harm's way; the other three had been innocent bystanders. I had all the proof I needed to be able to question the vampires once the sun went down. I was looking forward to nightfall and being able to talk to them, at the same time that I was worried what this rogue master had up his undead sleeve. The zombies at the hospital and the rotting vampires that wouldn't die had been pretty terrible, even by my standards. So, on one hand I was eager for the day to pass, and on the other hand, not so much.

Deputy Al went out with all the officers who could be spared to hunt up some of the more isolated people who weren't answering their phones and hadn't been seen in a while. Now that the warrant was officially mine I could include our guards in the investigation. It was a clause in the Preternatural Branch that had come into place after several marshals died because they were alone and hunting very bad things but couldn't involve civilians. When they did, some of the civilians had been charged with assault and in one case murder, because it had happened in states where self-defense wasn't as broadly defined in that individual state's laws. Most people don't realize how different some laws are from state to state. We are still the United States of America, and the founders of our country worded it that way for a reason. We're supposed to be a bunch of individual entities under the umbrella of America, not just one entity known as America, or that's how it was originally set up. The states may not be the nearly separate countries that the Founding Fathers thought they'd be, but legally there can be some surprising differences. In the days before I had a badge but was still expected to carry out legal executions, I read up on the laws of individual states, a lot. The Supreme Court had ruled in favor of some of the civilians who had saved the marshals' lives, but they'd been in jail until that time, so a new 'law' had been piggybacked onto the Marshals Service. It was really an old tradition given new language and new legality. As the warrant holder I could recruit civilians if I thought they had skills that would help me stay alive and help me keep civilian casualties lower.

It was basically a legal version of the sheriff standing out in front of the saloon in the Old West and saying, 'Let's form a posse and go get these guys.' It meant that I could have Nicky with me officially.

I found a little privacy in a corner of the room as everyone cleared out and called him to join me; he'd asked, 'Do you want Dev?'

'I think Dev has had enough of my day job for a while,' I said.

'Do you have a preference of who I bring with me?'

'I don't know who all is here now. Lisandro said that they'd only brought the best; with Claudia in charge I believe it.'

'So let Claudia pick?' he asked.

'As long as her choice isn't someone that you or I don't like to work with, and it has to be someone who works well with the police.'

'I'll see who Claudia wants to send. Do you have a preference where Dev goes in the rotation?'

'Do you? He and you partner a lot for guard duty,' I asked.

Either he made a small pleased sound, or I could hear him smile over the phone. 'I love that you asked my opinion, when you could just make your Bride suck it up.'

I smiled. 'I guess I'm just not that kind of Groom. Honestly, until you made that remark in the hospital I thought you and Dev were good friends.'

'I don't know if I can explain it to you, but he's a friend up to a point. When he lost it after the basement fight, his status in my friend list went down.'

'Because he was weak?' I made it a question.

'And because if that fight bothered him, then he doesn't want to know most of what I've spent my life doing. You can't really be friends with someone who only likes parts of you. I can be work friends with Dev, and share you with him like in the shower, that was fun, but he couldn't stomach who I really am, Anita. I know that now.'

Edward came up to me. 'Can I put a vote in?'

I nodded. 'Ted wants to put his two cents' worth in,' I said.

'I'm cool with that,' Nicky said.